Abstract

Plasma-based decelerating schemes are investigated as compact alternatives for the disposal of high-energy beams(beam dumps). Analytical solutions for the energy loss of electron beams propagating in passive and active (laser-driven) schemes are derived. These solutions, along with numerical modeling, are used to investigate the evolution of the electron distribution, including energy chirp and total beam energy. In the active beam dump scheme, a laser-driver allows a more homogeneous beam energy extraction and drastically reduces the energy chirp observed in the passive scheme. These concepts could benefit applications requiring overall compactness, such as transportable light sources, or facilities operating at high beam power.

This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, by the National Nuclear Security administration DNN R&D/NA-22 and by the CAPES Foundation of Ministry of Education of Brazil, under Process No. 10743-13-8. This research used computational resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.